


Self-Control

by K_Hanna_Korossy



Category: The Real Ghostbusters
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 12:52:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5785954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_Hanna_Korossy/pseuds/K_Hanna_Korossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag to "Ghostworld." Ray had never been possessed before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Self-Control

First published in  _We Got One! 4_ (2001)

 

It really wasn’t fair. It had been a tough, draining day, starting with being possessed and then going downhill from there until Ghostworld was shut down and Karro Zans was taken care of. The kind of day that made Peter want to burrow down into his bed and sleep for a week to forget. Instead, while he was in bed, he was also miserably stuffed up and had a scratchy throat and cotton in his head. This was **not** a fair reward for what they’d gone through beforehand. He’d have to find some suitable way to thank Egon for passing his cold on to his three partners. The thought was the first cheerful one Peter had had that afternoon, and he closed his eyes with a smile to contemplate it.

**_A-choo!_ **

The impressive sneeze made him open his eyes again, and he blinked blearily across the room at his fellow invalids. Winston was curled up in his own bed, snoring away more loudly than usual by virtue of his congestion. He seemed to be sicker than any of them, and Peter silently wished him good rest and speedy recovery.

Ray, on the other hand, was huddled under his covers, turned away from his bunkmates and facing the wall. Peter might have also believed him asleep except that his shoulders were hunched, and he was sniffing quietly to himself amidst roof-rattling sneezes. Ray was not only not sleeping, he was decidedly miserable. And, Peter frowned, it didn’t seem to him that the reason was purely physical.

Not that he couldn’t think of a cause. The memories imposed themselves on his thoughts constantly: the feeling of his body being taken over, his consciousness suppressed, his actions beyond his control. The experience kept trying to remind him of Watt, but he refused to go there. Watt had been...a nightmare. Sheer agony as he’d fought the demon and lost, and then the helpless, very conscious awareness of what Watt was doing through him, while all he could do was watch... It had taken a great deal of time and support from the guys before he’d really recovered from the experience.

This time wasn’t as bad, the violation somehow not as damaging. There had been no painful struggle, nor had he been more than vaguely aware of what was going on until it was over. It had been wholly unpleasant and a violation nonetheless, and the revival of his run-in with Watt would probably give him a few nightmares, but it was manageable. In fact, his concern for Ray had all but drowned out the unpleasant thoughts.

Movement in the doorway drew his attention, and Venkman glanced over to see Egon hovering uncertainly there, checking on them. The sight of a hesitant Egon was usually one to give Peter pause, but this time he grinned at the blond. Despite the illogic of Spengler blaming himself for being the unwitting cause of his friends’ illness, he obviously still felt embarrassed about the fact...and Peter was enjoying every minute of it.

Egon noticed the psychologist’s gaze and stepped over to his bed. “How are you feeling, Peter?” he asked solicitously.

“I’ll live, though I won’t enjoy it very much,” Peter grumbled. “Couldn’t you have found something nicer to share with your buddies, Egon?”

Egon grew a little pinker at that, but looked sternly at him. “Really, Peter, it’s not as though I had any control in the matter. As I recall, you were more than generous with the stomach flu you picked up last year around Labor Day--”

“Hey, what’s a few bacteria among friends, anyway?” Peter cut in hastily before that train of thought went any further. He remembered that holiday all too well.

“Virus, Peter.”

“Whatever,” Peter shrugged good-naturedly, then eyed the physicist with sudden suspicion as a thought occurred to him. “Hey, where’s your mom? She’s not in the kitchen whipping up more of that potion for us, is she?” He liked Mrs. Spengler tremendously, but the lady was lethal with a blender.

If anything, Egon looked even more uncomfortable. “Actually, I convinced her to go home, after all. I, er, promised her I would make her elixir for the three of you myself.”

Peter half sat up. “Egon. . . .” he muttered warningly.

“Of course, I never said what I would do with it once I made it up,” Egon finished, only the twinkle in his eye betraying his amusement. “I believe it’s the first consumable substance I’ve found that Slimer is actually repulsed by. At the speed at which he left, I don’t believe we’ll be seeing him back today.”

Peter nearly choked on a laugh, which turned into a protesting cough. Then, across the room, Ray sneezed once more, and Peter’s humor drained away all at once. Clearing his throat, he snagged the physicist’s sleeve and pulled him down to sit on the edge of the bed.             

The laughter in Egon’s eyes turned just as quickly into concern. “Are you all right, Peter?”

“Yeah,” Peter said more softly, “but it’s not me I’m worried about. Have you talked to Ray since we got back from Ghostworld?”

Egon nodded an answer to the unasked question as he glanced over his shoulder. “I noticed he was unusually quiet as well,” he murmured back. “I had hoped it was merely the cold.”

Peter shook his head. “I don’t think so. Don’t forget, he was the one Karro Zans used to lure the rest of us in, and he was possessed a lot longer than we were. Besides, he’s never been--” Suddenly he stopped.

Knowing blue eyes studied him. “‘He’s never been possessed before’,” Egon finished. “Unlike you. Do you honestly expect me to believe that makes it easier for you now?”

Peter had seen Egon watching him from the very first moment they’d become unpossessed--well, all of them, but Peter in particular. Spengler knew perhaps best of all just how bad the experience with Watt had been for Venkman, and he’d clearly been worried about how Peter would take a second exposure.

Peter smiled warmly at his friend. Sometimes having someone care about you like that was the best cure of all. “Yeah, it wasn’t much fun,” he said honestly, “but it wasn’t as bad this time, either, Spengs. Really. It didn’t hurt, and I didn’t know much of what was going on until it was over. Compared to Watt, old Zans was pretty nice. I think it was really tough on Ray, though, both the possession and knowing that he got the rest of us involved.”

Egon regarded him critically a moment longer, then nodded, apparently satisfied with what he found. He turned instead once more to study the lump that was Ray curled up under the covers. Egon looked back at Peter. “Will you or should I--?”

“I’ll do it,” Peter sniffed, then coughed. “Right up my alley. And besides, I’ve got experience in this department. Just think, I could start a whole peer support group, Possessed Anonymous....” The weak joke died under Egon’s perceptive frown. Peter couldn’t get anything past the physicist. “I’m okay, Egon, really. Let me talk to him. At least I can tell him it gets better.”

They both knew the reason for that. Egon smiled at him, his eyes equally warm. “All right, Doctor Venkman. In the meantime, I’m going to make some chicken soup for dinner.” He looked over at their fourth partner. “Perhaps Winston will be awake by then, too. I sent Janine home earlier. She, uh, wasn’t feeling too well, either.”

Peter sighed. “You’re a generous man, Egon. Did you share your cold with Karro Zans, too?”

“Ghosts don’t get colds,” Egon said, straightening stiffly even as he reached out a hand to help Peter up. “Perhaps Mom’s elixir would help after all if you’re feeling so poorly--”

“Don’t even think about it, Spengler,” Venkman growled, accepting the help.

With a half-hidden smile at Peter and a last concerned glance in Ray’s direction, Egon retreated from the room.

Peter draped his blanket around himself and rose, padding quietly over to the bed across the room from him, failing to stifle a sneeze as he reached it. The tuft of auburn hair that stuck out under the covers didn’t react to the noise, or to the jiggling of the bed as Peter sat down on the edge and hoisted his own blanket more comfortably around his shoulders. Ray was either ignoring him or too wrapped up in his own misery to pay attention to his visitor. Venkman suspected it was the latter.

“Hey, Tex, you okay in there?” Peter pulled at his friend’s covers, tugging them out of reluctant hands to reveal a red-eyed Ray pressed into his pillow. Peter’s voice softened at the sight. “Ray? You wanna talk to Uncle Peter here?”

“I don’t feel good, Peter. Lemme sleep,” Ray sniffled, trying to pull the blanket out of Peter’s hand and back over his own head.

“Is that because of the cold or Karro Zans?” Peter asked with kind bluntness.

Ray curled up even more tightly and squeezed his eyes shut, as if trying to block out even the memories.

“That’s what I thought,” Peter said softly, and let go of the blanket only to start rubbing Ray’s shoulder. “You’re not blaming yourself for today, are you, Ray?”

No response from the unhappy lump of his friend.

Peter’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he looked at Ray for a moment, then he withdrew his hand to wrap his trailing comforter around himself. “I can understand that,” he began conversationally. “After all, you were the one Karro Zans used to draw the rest of us in. Well, you and Janine.” Ray buried himself as far into his pillow as he could and still breathe, muffling another sneeze. Peter winced and went on. “I guess it doesn’t matter that it was all against your will or that you were hurt, too. It’s still your fault, just like it’s Egon’s fault for sharing his cold. Or,” he slumped a little, “my fault for letting Watt turn the containment unit off--”

Ray uncurled immediately to stare at him with wide, anxious eyes. “That wasn’t your fault, Peter! You fought him as hard as you could, we could see that. Egon says nobody could’ve resisted Watt--”

Peter nodded sagely. “Okay, so Watt’s different from Karro Zans--how?”

Ray flushed under illness-reddened cheeks. “I didn’t try to fight him very hard. He just. . . took over. I couldn’t control it at all.” He dropped his eyes in shame.

“Hey,” Peter said gently, “if it was anything like what I felt, I couldn’t control what I was doing, either.” Another sneeze from Ray. “Gesundheit. Heck, I didn’t really know what happened until it was all over.” He sniffed, rooting around in his pajama pocket until he found a partly-clean tissue, and blew his nose.

Ray had dragged himself up in the meantime, and now sat pressed up against the bed frame, hugging his knees.   “I could feel him. . . ” His voice was distant, his gaze unfocused as he looked at the wall without seeing it. “. . . but it was like. . . watching it happen to somebody else. Sorta disconnected. All I could feel was the evil. . . .” He shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut again.

Peter started at that, annoyed with himself that he’d not thought of that before. Ray’s innocence, as indestructible and eternal as it seemed, was still carefully guarded by his friends. Darkness and evil simply appeared to be alien concepts to him, wholly incomprehensible. Except now he’d gotten a heavy dose of both, up close and personal. Undeserved guilt would plague Ray for a while, sure, but he was never one to wallow in it. It was the horror of what he’d seen that was really bothering him.

Peter frowned, quelling the rage at Karro Zans that built inside of him with no place to go except the intensity of his next words.

“Ray, yeah, Zans was a scumbag. I was lucky and didn’t get as close to him as you did, but anybody who sets out to destroy us is not gonna get any good conduct awards for me. But you know, that’s why we can’t let you blame yourself. Zans did what he did **because** he was evil and powerful. He wasn’t playing by any rules, and that was part of his edge. The only thing he didn’t count on, though, was the one thing we have that he could never understand.”

He left that hanging, waiting, until Ray finally, curiously, looked up. Peter grinned at him a little lopsidedly.

“Friendship. Egon saw what was happening to us and he figured out how to undo it and free us. Because we’re a team and we take care of each other. Just like you guys wouldn’t have let Watt keep me. It’s **our** edge over the bad guys, because they can’t understand that kind of commitment.”

Ray blinked hard a few times, trying to get rid of the shine in his eyes. “I know,” he whispered.

Peter smiled in earnest. “Good. ‘Cause we’re not gonna let you beat up on yourself, either, Ray. Nobody messes with one of us, and that includes one of us. If you’re responsible for what Karro Zans did, then I’m responsible for Watt, and I don’t even want to **think** about that one.”

The familiar compassion Peter was used to seeing in his old friend returned to Ray’s eyes, replacing some of the turmoil. “We really could see how hard you were fighting him, Peter,” he said soberly. “We were so scared for you.”

“Thanks, Ray, I know,” Peter said softly. “How d’you think I got over it as easily as I did?” Well, not easily, maybe, but certainly easier than it would have been alone.

“ **Do** you get over it?” The whisper drew his attention back to those round, unguarded eyes, and he almost sighed with relief when he saw there was hope in them now, not just despair.

“Hey, have I ever lied to you?” Peter protested with renewed cheerfulness. At Ray’s doubtful look, he grinned fondly at his friend, but the green eyes were earnest. “Yeah, Ray, you really do,” he nodded. “Especially if you let your friends help. You won’t forget it, but it gets a lot easier, believe me.”

A simple, immediate nod. “I do. I just. . . .” The brown eyes darted away from him self-consciously.

“Let me guess.” Peter held up his hand, pausing to rub his itching nose with it. “You’re still sick to your stomach and your head hurts. You feel totally out of control. You close your eyes--bless you--and see it all happening again.” He ticked off the list on his fingers, his tone deliberately neutral. “You’re not even sure if your thoughts are yours or someone else’s. And,” he studied his friend knowingly, “you’re scared to go to sleep and maybe wake up somebody else. Am I getting warm?”

Ray stared at him in astonishment. “You, too?”

“Oh, yeah,” Peter said wryly. “Not so much this time, but I’ve been there before. And you remember what you guys did for me the first few nights?” Okay, one, really, but he’d be willing to do more for Ray if his partner needed it.

Ray blushed a little. “Sat with you while you were sleeping.” All three of them had taken turns with Peter that first night, not even needing to do anything more than just be there, a reminder each time Peter started awake that he was safe and watched over and everything was okay.

“Uh-huh,” Peter agreed smartly, then straggled to his feet, returning to his bed while Ray watched his every move. The psychologist retrieved his pillows, then dragged them back to Ray’s bed. There, he piled them against the bedframe at the foot of the bed, and curled comfortably against them, rewrapping himself in his sagging blanket. Finally, he looked up at Ray again. “So, you gonna go to sleep now or should I read you a bedtime story, too?”

Ray grinned gratefully a little at him, a little spark of his old humor returning, Peter rejoiced to see. The younger man snuggled flat down back on the bed, his eyes still on the brunet. “Do you know any bedtime stories, Peter?”

“None suitable for young ears like yours,” Peter answered immediately. “Go to sleep, Ray. I think Winston’s pretty much out for the count, but Egon or I’ll be here.”

“I know.” Another sniff, whether from the cold or something more, Peter wasn’t sure, but he let it go. Ray would be okay, they’d all see to that. “Thanks, Peter.” The stuffy voice drifted once more from beneath the covers, already beginning to sound drowsy.

“Anytime, kid,” Peter whispered back.

Peace descended on the room for a few minutes.

It was a sign of how lousy he felt that it took Peter as long as it did before he realized he wasn’t the only one up in the bedroom.

“How long have you been there?” he asked mildly without turning.

“Long enough to know that Ray will be all right.” The deep voice from the doorway came closer until it was right next to him. “That was good work, Doctor Venkman.”

Peter shrugged off the praise even though it warmed him inside. “Don’t have to be a psychologist to help your friends, Spengs.” He finally squinted up at the blond. “You should know that,” he added pointedly.

A single incline of the head and the glow in the blue eyes told him the message was received. “I heard what you promised Ray about one of us sitting with him during the night. The soup is ready, and after that you should get some rest, Peter. I can stay with him.”

Peter considered that and shook his head, stifling a sneeze. “Thanks, Egon, and I’ll take you up on the food and the sleep later, but I think I’m gonna stay here for a little bit. Kinda makes me feel better, too, y’know?”

Another perceptive gaze swept his face, then Egon nodded and, briefly grasping Peter’s shoulder as he went, headed back toward the kitchen.

Peter ached with contentment, though a second later he couldn’t resist calling over his shoulder, softly to keep from waking the others, “But, hey, if you wanna do some penance, you could always bring me dinner in bed. And maybe do the laundry--it’s my turn this week, but I don’t think I’ll be able to, feeling this lousy. The bills on my desk need to paid, and--”

Three muttered words carried back to him from the door. “Mom’s elixir, Peter.”

His world righted, Peter grinned and burrowed into the pillows to keep vigil over his friends.

The End


End file.
